I had the chance to be interviewed by Deb Brown, the Chamber Director at The Webster City Area Chamber of Commerce as part of their Member Blab Series. These are 15 -20 minute interviews to give members time to speak on their business, with a few leading questions. Deb and I have known each other for 10 years or so, so the interview went very smooth.

As of 2016, I will have been in business for 20 years, as I started in 1996 while working at KLMJ Radio. I decided to go to a full time status as of 2006 after Midwest Wireless claimed I violated their “non-compete” clause as they were getting into computer repair as well. Funny, I don’t hear the name “Tech Pros” anymore.

I talked about how things got started in 1979 when I helped my Father when he brought our first computer home program it so it could figure out the “perfect” batch of concrete, whether it be for a quarter of a yard or a eight yard load. The program was written in “BASIC” language, a language that I got pretty good at programming. I wrote tons of programs and I even got paid for some of them!

We discussed how people from Hampton and from Webster City sometimes take their communities for granted on what we expect from them. I don’t know the term, but we need to knock it off. If we host a visitor from another town, complaining about what we don’t have is not going to want to make them stay. In High School, I hated Webster City, because we always played them for Homecoming…and they were good.

Back a few months ago, I was talking to Sara Broers who manages our North Iowa Social Media Breakfast Club about how we were going to round out the year. What sort of program would we do two days before Christmas in two feet of snow and expect people to show up? We didn’t expect people to drive in inclement weather, but we wanted to remain consistent as far as our monthly programming went. I told her I would think of something.

In September I was at the “Social Media Rockstar Event” in Minnesota and I heard Janet Johnson give a presentation on “Blab” and how she uses it for podcasting and my wheels started to spin. At the same time, Jason Falls had just launched a podcast called “100 Proof: The Badass Radio Show.” In the meantime I also knew that since there were three open seats on my “Blab” that I could have one more guest and I’d been a fan of Bridget Willard and her “You Too Can Be A Guru” YouTube channel.

I talked to Janet and she said she’d be glad to appear, while Jason said, “Hell, yeah!!” and Bridget said, “That’s 6:45am here in California!! But, I’ll be happy to be on the Blab.” Naturally, I had talked to Jason and Janet back in September and so after a friendly reminder was sent out, I officially got them on board for the December 23rd event.

I wanted to feature three different styles of podcast. Throw a stick and you can come up with MANY topics that everyone is an “expert” at, so I wanted to feature Jason, not because of his digital marketing experience, but for his work in radio and having fun with the podcast. I wanted to feature Janet, because her co-host of her podcast is in another state and Bridget because hers is a regularly scheduled Blab.

I’m happy to report that the event went off without a hitch and there were a lot of viewers and a lot of interest in the room. As you can see, many of the people in the crowd (23 men and 7 women) were live tweeting and posting on social media about what the presenters were talking about. I thought it was probably more important to show the audience, since I was going to turn it over to questions at the end of the event.

By the way, during the show, it was raining and the temperature was 35 degrees.

Here are some of the links to the speakers’ websites and Twitter info!

About once a year I get a request from the gang at Podnutz to do a live show that will be recorded and saved for later. Many times it’s just a podcast and this time it was a live video show. I have been with others before on the show and I’ve been interviewed one on one. Jeff does a fine job with the show and it is (very) professional in my opinion! I’m always glad to help him out with content and sometimes we stay on topic and sometimes we drift a bit, but Jeff always brings us back. Thanks to the other guys as well for rounding out the program!

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!” That’s what most people thought when they downloaded “The Most Popular Words Used In Your Profile” app this past week. Over the past several days, it was revealed that the app really wasn’t that keen on keeping your information secure, so The Computer Guy to the rescue and has made a video on what to do in removing the apps that you no longer use or that may be harmful to your ONLINE health.

Enjoy and be careful, even when you set apps to “Only Me” they can still collect your private information!

Here’s a service that I’m listed with, it is called Thumbtack. I suppose I signed up several years ago and have done some computer jobs through their services. It’s a “lead service” type of system where people submit their computer issues and if I think that I want to tackle then, I reply back to them…but, it comes with a hitch.

That hitch is, I pay to write them back. For the most part, it costs me about $3.50 which, when/if I’m booked, I pass right back onto the customer. I can tell when my SEO services for The Computer Guy have slid a bit, because then I get more requests. If someone Googles, “Computer Repair” along with a community in North Iowa, my site usually pops up as one of the top listings. However from time to time, Thumbtack will also pop up and people get click-happy and click the first one, which is most often Thumbtack.

Now ThumbTack doesn’t just offer computer repair, they offer many other services. Lawn mowing, car washing, graphic image services and many more. Maybe you just want to see what is out there and get a bid for the work you want to get done. If you provide services that I mentioned above, you may want to become a Thumbtack Pro.

Now, several computer companies are on Thumbtack, however I think out of the bunch, I’m the highest rated because I’ve done the most work for them and have the most reviews. Once I do work for them via Thumbtack, I just take over as their provider. There’s no real need for them to go back to Thumbtack, unless they are unhappy with my work. I’m not saying that they won’t, but from the reviews I get and the return business I get, I’m pretty sure that they do come back to me.

Anyway, for 2015 The Computer Guy is ranked as a Top Performer in the Mason City, Iowa area and I appreciate that!